THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. IOI 



children. All children in the country help themselves largely 

 to the vegetable diet provided by Nature. They eat herbs and 

 berries, roots and nuts, like their savage and simian ancestors. 

 Sometimes they even rob orchards ! I think it may safely be 

 said that children, as a body, prefer a vegetable to a meat diet. 

 Almost every child prefers fruit to meat. No- doubt allow- 

 ance must be made for vitiation of instinct, and some children 

 may manifest a great liking for meat ; they may be taught to 

 like it, just as pigeons and other vegetable feeders may, or as 

 they might be taught to like many other things — gin, for 

 instance. Here, again, we are aided by the study of man's remote 

 ancestors. His simian progenitors were entirely vegetable 

 feeders, and, although cannibalism is indulged in by certain 

 savage tribes, yet their staple diet is undoubtedly a vegetable 

 one. Apart, however, from these considerations, we have the 

 evidence of experience, which shows that an excess of meat 

 diet is injurious. (Butchers are short-lived.) Therefore, man's 

 diet should be mainly vegetable ; that of children almost 

 entirely so. Our medical experience teaches us, moreover, that 

 the supply should be abundant. All doctors now agree that, 

 till the period of development has ceased, the individual should 

 have as much food as he can eat — provided, of course, that it 

 be suitable. 



Nor should the mind of youth be unduly stimulated, 

 Here, again the natural instincts of the child help us. Every 

 healthy child revolts against the enforced incarceration of 

 school hours, and against the effort of fixing the mind long on 

 the same subject. Indeed, the early education of the young, 

 more especially of such as come of a nervous stock, requires 

 the greatest skill. 



I say it is well to study the E of our remote ancestors, and, 

 making due allowance for subsequent evolution, to erect a 

 system of bringing-up for our children. And let us be careful 

 that all children coming of an unhealthy stock be placed, as 

 far as possible, under this E, for we have seen that the age of 

 any particular disease is not great, and that its tendency to 

 disappear increases in proportion as the E approaches that of 

 our remote ancestors. One is, I think, justified in assuming that 

 a reversion to an ancestral state would be more likely to occur 



